Has the West Succeeded in Containing Houthi Red Sea Attacks?

This handout photo released by the US Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) shows US Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter aircraft of the Carrier Strike Group 2 (CSG2), deployed to support maritime security in the Middle East region, flying over the Red Sea on June 11, 2024. (US Navy/AFP)
This handout photo released by the US Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) shows US Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter aircraft of the Carrier Strike Group 2 (CSG2), deployed to support maritime security in the Middle East region, flying over the Red Sea on June 11, 2024. (US Navy/AFP)
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Has the West Succeeded in Containing Houthi Red Sea Attacks?

This handout photo released by the US Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) shows US Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter aircraft of the Carrier Strike Group 2 (CSG2), deployed to support maritime security in the Middle East region, flying over the Red Sea on June 11, 2024. (US Navy/AFP)
This handout photo released by the US Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) shows US Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter aircraft of the Carrier Strike Group 2 (CSG2), deployed to support maritime security in the Middle East region, flying over the Red Sea on June 11, 2024. (US Navy/AFP)

The US and western powers appear “incapable” of containing the attacks by the Houthis in Yemen against commercial ships in the Red Sea eight months after the Iran-backed militias started launching their operations.

The Houthis have been carrying out drone and missile strikes on shipping lanes since November, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel's war in Gaza.

The US, UK and European powers have since dispatched missions to the region to counter these attacks with apparent little success as the Houthis have upped their operations, with their strikes even reaching the Mediterranean.

Dr. Najeeb Ghallab, undersecretary at Yemen's Information Ministry, said the West still wrongly believes that the Houthis can be “rehabilitated” and employed to combat terrorism.

US envoy to Yemen Tim Lenderking said in April that a military solution was not possible to resolve the problem in Yemen.

Ghallab added that the US, West and even China have “all failed” in containing the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and their threats to international navigation.

“The Houthis are a suicideal phenomenon that is more dangerous than ISIS, the Taliban and al-Qaeda. These groups did not threaten international trade the way the Houthis are doing now. In spite of this, the West is still incapable of taking firm decisions,” he went on to say.

The Houthis are labeled as “reckless”, not “terrorist”, when they violate the interests of the Yemeni people and the entire world, he lamented.

“The Americans have a blind spot in handling the Yemeni file. They are still following Obama’s approach and favoring Iran’s agents in the region,” Ghallab stressed.

The Americans and UK have carried out around 530 strikes against the Houthis since January, leaving 58 of their members dead and 86 injured, according to the militias.

The Houthi attacks have so far hit 27 ships, sinking two.

Ghallab wondered why western powers have yet to strike the Houthi command and control centers. The US is only targeting command and control centers from where the rockets are being fired, but they have yet to attack critical Houthi locations.

Have the western powers struck a deal with the Houthis as part of a plan to legitimize them in Yemen and turn them into a partner with all national powers? he asked.

He dismissed the possibility, stressing that the Houthis are extorting the Arab coalition, legitimate Yemeni government and international community.

Moreover, he warned that the world is facing in the Houthis “an organized and professional terrorist” group, meanwhile, “no one is prepared to support the legitimate powers in Yemen to end the Iran-made crime in the country.”

“The world remains blind when it comes to Yemen. Yes, the Houthis may be claiming victories now, but, at the end of the day, they will be defeated,” he remarked.

Asked about the best way to confront the Houthis, he replied: “The answer may be impossible, but it is simple. We have a real force on the ground in Yemen, not just in regions held by the legitimate government, but in Hodeidah, Saada and Sanaa. Everyone there is looking for salvation from the Houthis.”

“Are foreign powers prepared to support the real forces so that a Yemeni state can be formed?” he wondered, while noting that the West “is opposed to the idea of freedom and revolution in Yemen.”

“This is a western problem, not a Russian or Chinese one. This isn’t a conspiracy,” he went on to say. “Rather, the West is strategically blind to the situation.”



Will Israel’s Interceptors Outlast Iran’s Missiles?

The Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept missiles during an Iranian attack over Tel Aviv, Israel, early Wednesday, June 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
The Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept missiles during an Iranian attack over Tel Aviv, Israel, early Wednesday, June 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
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Will Israel’s Interceptors Outlast Iran’s Missiles?

The Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept missiles during an Iranian attack over Tel Aviv, Israel, early Wednesday, June 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
The Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept missiles during an Iranian attack over Tel Aviv, Israel, early Wednesday, June 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Israel has a world-leading missile interception system but its bank of interceptors is finite. Now, as the war drags on, Israel is firing interceptors faster than it can produce them.

On Thursday, The New York Times reporters spoke to current and former Israeli officials about the strengths and weaknesses of Israeli air defense.

Aside from a potentially game-changing US intervention that shapes the fate of Iran’s nuclear program, two factors will help decide the length of the Israel-Iran war: Israel’s reserve of missile interceptors and Iran’s stock of long-range missiles.

Since Iran started retaliating against Israel’s fire last week, Israel’s world-leading air defense system has intercepted most incoming Iranian ballistic missiles, giving the Israeli Air Force more time to strike Iran without incurring major losses at home.

But now, as the war drags on, Israel is firing interceptors faster than it can produce them. That has raised questions within the Israeli security establishment about whether the country will run low on air defense missiles before Iran uses up its ballistic arsenal, according to eight current and former officials.

Already, Israel’s military has had to conserve its use of interceptors and is giving greater priority to the defense of densely populated areas and strategic infrastructure, according to the officials. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak more freely.

Interceptors are “not grains of rice,” said Brig. Gen. Ran Kochav, who commanded Israel’s air defense system until 2021 and still serves in the military reserve. “The number is finite.”

“If a missile is supposed to hit refineries in Haifa, it’s clear that it’s more important to intercept that missile than one that will hit the Negev desert,” General Kochav said.

Conserving Israel’s interceptors is “a challenge,” he added. “We can make it, but it’s a challenge.”

Asked for comment on the limits of its interceptor arsenal, the Israeli military said in a brief statement that it “is prepared and ready to handle any scenario and is operating defensively and offensively to remove threats to Israeli civilians.”

No Israeli official would divulge the number of interceptors left at Israel’s disposal; the revelation of such a closely guarded secret could give Iran a military advantage.

The answer will affect Israel’s ability to sustain a long-term, attritional war. The nature of the war will partly be decided by whether Trump decides to join Israel in attacking Iran’s nuclear enrichment site at Fordo, in northern Iran, or whether Iran decides to give up its enrichment program to prevent such an intervention.

But the war’s endgame will also be shaped by how long both sides can sustain the damage to their economies, as well as the damage to national morale caused by a growing civilian death toll.

Israel relies on at least seven kinds of air defense. Most of them involve automated systems that use radar to detect incoming missiles and then provide officers with suggestions of how to intercept them.

Military officials have seconds to react to some short-range fire, but minutes to judge the response to long-range attacks. At times, the automated systems do not offer recommendations, leaving officers to make decisions on their own, General Kochav said.

The Arrow system intercepts long-range missiles at higher altitudes; the David’s Sling system intercepts them at lower altitudes; while the Iron Dome takes out shorter-range rockets, usually fired from Gaza, or the fragments of missiles already intercepted by other defense systems.

The United States has supplied at least two more defense systems, some of them fired from ships in the Mediterranean, and Israel is also trying out a new and relatively untested laser beam. Finally, fighter jets are deployed to shoot down slow-moving drones.

Some Israelis feel it is time to wrap up the war before Israel’s defenses are tested too severely.

At least 24 civilians have been killed by Iran’s strikes, and more than 800 have been injured. Some key infrastructure, including oil refineries in northern Israel, has been hit, along with civilian homes. A hospital in southern Israel was struck on Thursday morning.

Already high by Israeli standards, the death toll could rise sharply if the Israeli military is forced to limit its general use of interceptors in order to guarantee the long-term protection of a few strategic sites like the Dimona nuclear reactor in southern Israel or the military headquarters in Tel Aviv.

“Now that Israel has succeeded in striking most of its nuclear targets in Iran, Israel has a window of two or three days to declare the victory and end the war,” said Zohar Palti, a former senior officer in the Mossad, Israel’s spy agency.

“When planning how to defend Israel in future wars, no one envisaged a scenario in which we would be fighting on so many fronts and defending against so many rounds of ballistic missiles,” said Palti, who was for years involved in Israel’s defensive planning.

Others are confident that Israel will be able to solve the problem by destroying most of Iran’s missile launchers, preventing the Iranian military from using the stocks that it still has.

Iran has both fixed and mobile launchers, scattered across its territory, according to two Israeli officials. Some of its missiles are stored underground, where they are harder to destroy, while others are in aboveground caches, the officials said.

The Israeli military says it has destroyed more than a third of the launchers. Officials and experts say that has already limited the number of missiles that Iran can fire in a single attack.

US officials said Israel’s strikes against the launchers have decimated Iran’s ability to fire its missiles and hurt its ability to create large-scale barrages.

“The real issue is the number of launchers, more than the number of missiles,” said Asaf Cohen, a former Israeli commander who led the Iran department in Israel’s military intelligence directorate.

“The more of them that are hit, the harder it will be for them to launch barrages,” Cohen added. “If they realize they have a problem with launch capacity, they’ll shift to harassment: one or two missiles every so often, aimed at two different areas simultaneously.”

The New York Times